Nathaniel Finley
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I know there are many threads here that discuss the origins of specific hat makers, but I’d like to do something a bit different with this thread. If this is not a worthwhile contribution than I trust the administrators to catalogue this post in an appropriate thread. I do feel a thread dedicated to the history of all hat styles would be a good knowledge base for our community, and I didn't see anything like that in my search.
I’ll start this thread with my argument for the origin of “the Poet” hat, which as many of us know has evolved in popular culture into the 4th Doctor Who’s hat as well as the Indiana Jones hat. It seems that Herbert Johnson is one of the earliest hat makers to produce a hat called “the Poet,” but I have yet to see evidence that they originated the name or the style. In fact, I present here evidence that this hat was very much known prior to Herbert Johnson’s introduction of the style sometime in the 1890s.
My story begins with the following image of Goethe, who is something like the German equivalent of Shakespeare and exerted an enormous influence in all of Europe in the 19th century (not just in the German-speaking lands):
In this image, we see (possibly for the first time?) a poet with a wide brimmed, high-crowned hat. This particular hat style, it seems, was popular among literary tourists in Italy (on the so-called “Grand Tour”) during the early 19th century, so his choice was not unconventional. What was unconventional was to depict a literary celebrity in a hat of any kind (the classical period only saw literary figures in wigs). Only visual artists (think Rembrandt) had been allowed such immodesty until that time, since a hat was an outdoors accessory and not designed for literary pursuits, which were indoors.
However, Goethe and his romantic followers changed that. Particularly after Wordsworth, the poet was seen as a hiker, a wanderer, and a keen observer of nature, and Goethe in his wide-brimmed hat is making exactly that statement. He carries literary convention out of the parlors and libraries and into the wide world.
This shift, I argue, is key to “the Poet” hat as a cultural trope. In 1850, Wordsworth died and Alfred, Lord Tennyson became the poet laureate of Great Britain for the next four decades. In at least two different points in his life, Tennyson was depicted in photos in a wide-brimmed, high crown hat. At a time when photos were very precious, it is curious that he would insist on such a fashion statement.
Here is Dante Gabriel Rossetti with a similar hat (and there are other similar photos of him). Again, why make such a fashion statement?
And finally, here is one of the famous shots of Oscar Wilde, taken in 1882 – 7 years before Herbert Johnson was founded as an enterprise – in a similarly wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat:
What is important is to bear in mind is that at this time wide-brimmed hats were not associated with gentlemen, and that literary figures of that age in Britain came mostly from educated, middle- or upper-class families (with few exceptions). These were families who wanted their children to become successful in life, and a poet is not exactly a successful career path. Here is an add for “correct hats” of that era (notice that all of them are small brimmed):
And here is an interesting blog post about late-Victorian men’s fashion that discusses the dress of the dandy and gentleman:
http://1890swriters.blogspot.my/2013/07/isnt-that-dandy.html
These, in contrast to this shot of child “slumdog” from that period, who is wearing exactly the type of hat we would associate with the poet:
To wear a “poet” hat as a middle- or upper-class gentleman, was to throw it in the face of convention, to say poetry was more important than success. It was also to say, “I am going out into the world to record in verse my experiences there, and the ‘gentlemanly hats’ do not satisfy my needs in that regard.”
Here is a painting of a middle-aged John Masefield, who became poet laureate of England in 1930. I couldn’t find when this was painted, but it looks to be about the time of his appointment to the post of poet laureate at the age of 52 (or possibly even before). Again, wide-brimmed, high crowned hat except this time married to a sharp suit of clothes:
Finally, here is a shot of a crowd at a football match. This was taken in 1913, sometime after Herbert Johnson first introduced the Poet, though I don’t suppose fashion had changed very much. I do not see a single wide-brimmed hat in the crowd. Not even the average working-class Englander would wear such a hat. It was only for slumdogs and bohemians.
It is interesting to me that Walt Whitman, on the other side of the pond in 1855, opted not to include his name on his original self-published edition of LEAVES OF GRASS. Rather, he shows himself in a wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat. Perhaps this is coincidence, but literary historians are quick to point out what a genius Whitman was at self-promotion and therefore I am inclined to believe that even in America Whitman was aware of this style of hat as marking a specific type of individual, namely “the poet.”
That’s my thesis for the origin of the Poet hat. I might be totally wrong, but it was certainly fun to research. I wonder if others have similar stories of their favorite hat style they would care to share?
Cheers,
Nathan
I’ll start this thread with my argument for the origin of “the Poet” hat, which as many of us know has evolved in popular culture into the 4th Doctor Who’s hat as well as the Indiana Jones hat. It seems that Herbert Johnson is one of the earliest hat makers to produce a hat called “the Poet,” but I have yet to see evidence that they originated the name or the style. In fact, I present here evidence that this hat was very much known prior to Herbert Johnson’s introduction of the style sometime in the 1890s.
My story begins with the following image of Goethe, who is something like the German equivalent of Shakespeare and exerted an enormous influence in all of Europe in the 19th century (not just in the German-speaking lands):
In this image, we see (possibly for the first time?) a poet with a wide brimmed, high-crowned hat. This particular hat style, it seems, was popular among literary tourists in Italy (on the so-called “Grand Tour”) during the early 19th century, so his choice was not unconventional. What was unconventional was to depict a literary celebrity in a hat of any kind (the classical period only saw literary figures in wigs). Only visual artists (think Rembrandt) had been allowed such immodesty until that time, since a hat was an outdoors accessory and not designed for literary pursuits, which were indoors.
However, Goethe and his romantic followers changed that. Particularly after Wordsworth, the poet was seen as a hiker, a wanderer, and a keen observer of nature, and Goethe in his wide-brimmed hat is making exactly that statement. He carries literary convention out of the parlors and libraries and into the wide world.
This shift, I argue, is key to “the Poet” hat as a cultural trope. In 1850, Wordsworth died and Alfred, Lord Tennyson became the poet laureate of Great Britain for the next four decades. In at least two different points in his life, Tennyson was depicted in photos in a wide-brimmed, high crown hat. At a time when photos were very precious, it is curious that he would insist on such a fashion statement.
Here is Dante Gabriel Rossetti with a similar hat (and there are other similar photos of him). Again, why make such a fashion statement?
And finally, here is one of the famous shots of Oscar Wilde, taken in 1882 – 7 years before Herbert Johnson was founded as an enterprise – in a similarly wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat:
What is important is to bear in mind is that at this time wide-brimmed hats were not associated with gentlemen, and that literary figures of that age in Britain came mostly from educated, middle- or upper-class families (with few exceptions). These were families who wanted their children to become successful in life, and a poet is not exactly a successful career path. Here is an add for “correct hats” of that era (notice that all of them are small brimmed):
And here is an interesting blog post about late-Victorian men’s fashion that discusses the dress of the dandy and gentleman:
http://1890swriters.blogspot.my/2013/07/isnt-that-dandy.html
These, in contrast to this shot of child “slumdog” from that period, who is wearing exactly the type of hat we would associate with the poet:
To wear a “poet” hat as a middle- or upper-class gentleman, was to throw it in the face of convention, to say poetry was more important than success. It was also to say, “I am going out into the world to record in verse my experiences there, and the ‘gentlemanly hats’ do not satisfy my needs in that regard.”
Here is a painting of a middle-aged John Masefield, who became poet laureate of England in 1930. I couldn’t find when this was painted, but it looks to be about the time of his appointment to the post of poet laureate at the age of 52 (or possibly even before). Again, wide-brimmed, high crowned hat except this time married to a sharp suit of clothes:
Finally, here is a shot of a crowd at a football match. This was taken in 1913, sometime after Herbert Johnson first introduced the Poet, though I don’t suppose fashion had changed very much. I do not see a single wide-brimmed hat in the crowd. Not even the average working-class Englander would wear such a hat. It was only for slumdogs and bohemians.
It is interesting to me that Walt Whitman, on the other side of the pond in 1855, opted not to include his name on his original self-published edition of LEAVES OF GRASS. Rather, he shows himself in a wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat. Perhaps this is coincidence, but literary historians are quick to point out what a genius Whitman was at self-promotion and therefore I am inclined to believe that even in America Whitman was aware of this style of hat as marking a specific type of individual, namely “the poet.”
That’s my thesis for the origin of the Poet hat. I might be totally wrong, but it was certainly fun to research. I wonder if others have similar stories of their favorite hat style they would care to share?
Cheers,
Nathan
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